stealing time
by She's a Star
Summary: She's had many lovers, all of them young and handsome and enamored. You see, he's nothing special.


**Title:** stealing time  
**Pairing:** Satine/Christian  
**Word Count:** 2,275  
**Rating:** PG-13, maybe? There's one word that's not so nice. But otherwise we're in PG territory.  
**Summary:** She's had many lovers, all of them young and handsome and enamored; you see, he's nothing special.  
**Author's Note:** So, I have absolutely no idea where this came from, but I woke up this morning, and my brain decided it wanted to write Moulin Rouge fic. Maybe it's because I had to go get a TB test today, so I was feeling in the mood. (Except for the part where my mom misread the thing and I totally actually didn't. At least I got a free Snoopy bandaid and some potential Satine inspiration out of the deal. Whatevs.) So, um, anyway, this is the first fic I've written for this fandom since 2004. Unfortunately, now I am cynical and jaded, so it's not quite as great as that time I had Christian and Satine serenade each other with that one song by Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera. (Nooooooobody wants to be loooonely!) Maybe it's still cool, though. You tell me.

* * *

And then there are the mornings, when she smokes her cigarettes and he sleeps in late. She muses, watching him.

She's had many lovers, all of them young and handsome and enamored; you see, he's nothing special. Only one in a chain, not the first or the last. She isn't quite the first for him, either – he tells her, eyes bright, of a clandestine love affair with his sister's governess, the closest you can get to a whirlwind romance in proper society.

"But that was before you," he hastens to add – adorably, foolishly, as though she'll be jealous.

She isn't, of course, but when his hands are in her hair, and on the rare occasion where he'll kiss her awake, she wonders whether the sweetness and the softness of his eyes is only for her (she is the Sparkling Diamond, after all, and it ironically equates to being somehow untouchable in the eyes of men) or if he looked at this other woman in the same way. She is struck sometimes by the silly inclination to ask him, because she can't quite tell whether it is _her_ that he adores, with her cigarette cravings and dreams of the stage, the dusting of freckles across her nose in summer that the talcum powder hides.

Or is it the idea of her? – Of both of them: the courtesan and the poet. How lovely, how forbidden, and of course he has a taste for such things. (He is a writer, after all.) She casts quick glimpses at him sometimes, ones she knows he doesn't see, but he never wavers. If it's a charade, it's a good one, and she should know.

That in and of itself makes him intriguing to her, in a way another man hasn't quite been. She's always been able to tell before, whether the woman or the fantasy is the beloved thing, and the answer has always been the same.

For in this case, it seems that he loves her: it is said and sung and written down, but she mustn't take it seriously. She never has before.

He stirs in bed, pries open one reluctant eye; his mouth curves in an immediate smile at the sight of her.

--

It's only that he does make her laugh sometimes.

He surprises her one day at a particularly tedious rehearsal, standing behind the Duke and imitating his every move with uncanny accuracy. She is horrified when a loud, graceless laugh that is more like a squawk than anything slips out of her mouth and echoes through the vastness of the room.

"My dear?" the Duke asks, looking baffled. Christian immediately resumes flipping through the script.

"I'm sorry," Satine responds, struggling to regain her usual elegance. "I—"

Thankfully, the Argentinean collapses on top of la Petite Princesse, which proves a suitable distraction.

"You're terrible," she chides later, laughing. They're pressed together behind a rack of colorful petticoats in the makeshift sewing room; Marie slips in and out, but she won't say anything, Satine knows – not even to Harry. She had a redhaired daughter who died young, and she's always had a soft spot for Satine because of it.

"I couldn't help it," Christian responds as earnestly as he can. "He's such a dashing fellow, isn't he?"

She stifles his laughter with her mouth as Elizabeth wanders in, fretting over the embroidery for the courtesan's wedding dress in the final scene.

--

She can't lie to him, though, is the funny thing.

He asks her what she thinks of the scene he has just finished writing, where the courtesan and the sitar player confess their love. She tells him that it's lovely, marvels at his talent, although secretly she thinks it's painfully cliché, and hardly likes the idea of having to say "In the glowing stars, our destinies have entwined" in front of people.

He frowns at her, a bit; he's got a pen tucked behind his ears and an ink smudge on his cheek and somehow still looks Very Serious and Important, which she isn't used to.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Oh, yes," she breathes, as she ought to. "It's beautiful."

He's quiet for a moment, staring down at the pages, before he meets her eyes again. "Which line is your favourite?"

"Oh, I couldn't pick just one," she answers automatically. "The whole thing is so lovely—"

"Not 'in the glowing stars, our destinies have entwined'?" he asks wryly.

She can't shake the anxious feeling, like being trapped in a spider's web. "That was particularly exquisite—"

He laughs a little, as though he can't believe what she's saying. "You don't have to lie to me, you know."

"What?" The surprise is so sharp it almost feels like he's slapped her.

"You're lying," he announces; he's smiling, but there's hardness to it instead of humour. "You don't like it. I can tell."

"What are you talking about?" she asks, the words light and sweet. "Of course I—"

"You can just tell me," he cuts in. "I won't be angry."

"You don't believe me," she accuses, without quite meaning to. She is almost furious; it's almost insulting, that this boy, this starry-eyed lovestruck boy, of all people, this boy who shouldn't be able to begin to understand her in the first place, is the one to finally see through her—

"No," he answers simply.

She laughs. She doesn't know what else to do.

The line is scrapped, and much of the scene is reworked with her help. She finds it more exciting than she'd expected – she's never quite understood the appeal of storytelling, crafting situations out of thin air. She prefers to step into a world fully realized, to disappear from herself entirely. But there is something of that in writing, too, that she hadn't anticipated.

"You're quite good," he observes later, as he glances over the finished product.

She looks up at him, a little surprised. "Really?"

"I wouldn't say it if it weren't true," he answers, a spark of mischief in his voice.

"Ah, yes, I forgot," she responds affectionately, smoothing his hair. "You're quite the believer in truth, aren't you, Monsieur James? Your Bohemian ideals." It comes out strangely wistful. She hadn't meant it to.

"Don't you believe in them?" And he is the child again, his eyes wide and curious. She contemplates lying, this time out of mercy, but knows it would be pointless.

"I don't know what I believe," she answers after a moment's pause. She sounds very old – as old as she feels sometimes, when the cough comes. "I haven't known for a long, long time." She picks up a pen from his desk, twirls it in her fingers as a means of distraction. "There's never been much point, you see."

He doesn't say anything, and she thinks she's scared him. He does kiss her, though; his mouth certain against her temple, like some kind of silent promise. She wishes she didn't like him so much.

"Did you make that line awful on purpose?" she asks, to make matters lighter.

"Perhaps," he says, his eyes sparkling. The moonlight streams into the garret from the window, lights both of their faces. It takes her a moment to recognize happiness for what it is.

--

There is a fumbling reverence to his touch that she likes – lazy and sweet, with none of the selfish desperation she's grown used to. He breathes her name against her shoulder and it finally feels like _hers_.

--

Christian tells her about the stage productions he used to see in London.

"My father didn't approve, but my aunt and uncle were great fans of the theatre," he says, standing at the mirror in her dressing room and wiping at a particularly obstinate lipstick stain on his collar. "I'd go with them."

"And what did you see?" she asks in between fond murmurs to her canaries, her fingers tracing the lines of the cage.

"Oh, a number of profound things," he responds dramatically, then inquires, with flourish, "You've heard of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan?"

She grins at his theatricality. "Yes."

"There's the one set in Japan," he says. "The Mikado. We saw that a couple of times."

"How exotic," she comments, smiling.

"Very much so," he confirms laughingly. "Thank you for ruining my shirt, by the way."

She rolls her eyes at him and comes to inspect it herself. There's an odd domesticity to it; for a split-second she wonders what it might have been like, to be his wife. It's impossible, of course, but the idea holds a certain charm.

"Do you suppose you'll star in one someday?" he asks, smiling

"Hm?" she asks distractedly.

"The Mikado," he responds grandly. "Pirates of Penzance – HMS Pinafore – the possibilities are endless."

She contemplates it for a moment. Spectacular displays of wit and color and garishness have made up her whole life. She does so want to escape this place. "I'd prefer tragedy, I think," she decides.

"Oh really?"

She shrugs slightly, trying to sound unaffected. "It's what people remember, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," he answers, but his voice sounds far away and his hands loosen their grip on her waist. After a moment's silence, he asks, quietly, "Wouldn't you prefer a happy ending, though?"

The guilt she's been suppressing seems to seize her all at once. It's terribly selfish, being with him. He might not know the end to their story yet, but she does. If she were as sweet and as good as he thought her, she would put an end to all of this now, before it can truly ruin him.

It's only that she isn't.

"I thought we were talking about the stage," she points out instead, smiling a little.

He doesn't smile back. "Satine—"

The Duke comes in just then, thankfully so oblivious that they're able to scramble apart before he notices anything. She lets out a sigh of relief.

--

She almost looks forward to outings with the Duke. She remembers herself there – or forgets, to be precise. She is beginning to wonder whether there's really so much difference.

--

The other girls giggle over Christian. It's to be expected: he's handsome and kind, not to mention terribly bashful around them. It's charming, compared to the sorts of men they usually deal with.

"You think 'e ever fucked a girl before?" Babydoll muses, all of them crowded around the mirror, pushing and shoving affectionately back and forth.

"'Course 'e hasn't," Nini retorted, lining her eyes with kohl in quick, decisive strokes. "'e's from a good respectable family."

"What, they don't have whores in England?" Babydoll says, rolling her eyes.

"You seen 'im even looking at any of us?" Nini asks with a snort. "'e turns bright red."

"Y'know, one of us ought to take him under our wing," Tarot suggests deviously. "Teach him a few things."

"Just one of us?" Arabia asks, sly.

"Can't you all ever stop chattering?" Satine briskly interjects.

"Well, 'scuse us, Your Majesty," Nini scowls. "Not all of us've landed ourself a Duke."

"And you'd do well to remember it," Satine answers, but she winks to let them know she's not serious. She's never felt especially at home with all of them – she's been Harry's little treasure since the first time she set foot in this place, and she knows that deep down they all hate her for it.

Still, every one of them pretends, impeccably, that the animosity is nothing more than a joke between them all. It's something they're all quite good at.

"What're you doing down 'ere, anyhow?" Nini demands. "Thought you had your own private dressing room now."

"Maybe I missed you all," she shoots back.

"Yeah, yeah," Nini drawls, and swoops forward to kiss her cheek hard. Her lipstick stains bright red.

"What do you think, Satine?" Babydoll asks brightly, perching on the sloppy vanity. "The writer's handsome, isn't he?"

She feels Marie's eyes on her.

"I hadn't given it a thought," she regally declares.

--

She can even fool herself into thinking that she feels a bit stronger, being with him, but one afternoon she starts coughing and can't stop. He leads her to the bed and holds her hand, and the worry is so harsh on his face that it seems to line it, and she can see for a second what he'll look like years from now, when all of this has ended. He's singing to her softly, wordlessly, as she falls asleep.

She wakes up to the sound of the door shutting and the sudden smell of what might be chicken.

"I made soup," Christian announces quietly, as if speaking any louder might break her. "Or, um, tried. I've never been good at this."

It feels good to smile. "Thank you."

The soup is horrible. She eats it anyway, and he reads her the newest scene – not with the thick Argentinean accent that always makes her laugh, but in his own voice. The sitar player speaks of eternal love, of happy endings, and the courtesan begins to believe him even though she shouldn't.

It's all she can do not to say the words herself, but oh, she feels them as he looks down at her, smiles. She loves him, she loves him, she damns her own silly wasting heart.

--

"Where were you last night, chickpea?" Harry asks her one morning as she breezes into rehearsal. "The Duke was asking for you."

"Oh – nowhere," she responds airily, but she is a little less graceful and a little more happy and Harry, he understands. It's happened before to the other girls. It's only that he'd never thought to worry about her.


End file.
